Fear: Trump in the White House(112)

The full force of the U.S. military, including nuclear weapons, would have to be a central part of the deterrent. Bossert liked to say, and he said it regularly, that the use of any element of national power would be justified. The United States had too much to lose in a high-consequence cyber attack. Bossert had repeated it so often that the president seemed to understand, but the import of this—nuclear weapons as a cyber deterrent—had not quite become part of the public debate.

“What’s going on?” Trump finally asked.

“I’m coming at you one more time,” Bossert said. “I’m going to do TV”—the upcoming ABC Sunday show This Week. “But this China trade issue is going to come up again.” So would cyber.

“You and your cyber,” Trump said, “are going to get me in a war—with all your cyber shit.”

“That’s the point, sir. I’m trying to use other elements of national power to prevent bad behavior online. And that’s going to put me right in the middle of all of the decisions you’re making. That’s why I’m here. You’re now in the middle of a personal negotiation with President Xi. You just upped the ante to $150 billion” in tariff threats with China. “Fine. How do you want me to handle it on TV? I don’t want to go out and say something that’s going to then piss you off.”

Trump jumped at the invitation to provide some television coaching, to mainline some performance wisdom. It was pure delight.

“So here’s how you do it,” Trump said, his fingers flying in the air. “Tom, are you ready? You go up there. You say . . .” He wanted to formulate it just right. “You tell them you’ve never seen—no wait. First you tell them, ‘Trump’s dead serious.’ That’s what you tell them. Are you ready?”

Trump’s hands and fingers went up again. “You tell them $150 billion. Wait! You tell them $150 billion is nothing. He’s ready to go to $500 billion because he’s tired of not being treated fairly. That’s what you tell them!”

Trump continued with animated fingers. “You ready? That’s what you tell them.”

“Okay,” Bossert said, “you want me to go hard?”

“You go hard!” Trump said with enthusiasm. “If it weren’t Sunday, you’d shut the markets down, that’s how fucking hard you fucking go!”

Fingers up again. “Hold on! Wait! Then you say, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ See here, watch, here’s what you do.” Trump offered some stage direction, one hand up again for dramatic emphasis. “Then you say, ‘It’ll all be all right because the relationship Trump has with Xi is so . . .’?” A pause. A refinement. “It’s the best.” Wait! “You’ve never seen such a good relationship between two presidents in your life. Maybe ever.

“Are you ready?” the president asked.

Bossert thought he would remember the script and the Trump show, perhaps for the rest of his life. It was Trump’s way of saying, go hard, Trump’s willing to go to the mat. We’re being treated unfairly.

“And don’t worry about soybeans,” Trump said. The Chinese had announced they would retaliate with tariffs on American agriculture and other goods. Speaking in the third person, Trump said, “He’ll buy more goddamn soybeans if Trump has to. He’ll buy his own damn soybeans from his own farmers before the Chinese push him around. But then you tell them, ‘It’ll be all right. He and Xi will work out a deal. It’ll be a beautiful deal. The best deal you’ve ever seen.’?”

“So you want me to go hard and soft?” Bossert now asked—hard on determination and soft on the relationship with Xi.

“Yeah.”

Bossert raised cyber again.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Trump said, “if you have to hit the cyber thing, fine.”

Bossert saw that Trump wanted him to stick to trade. “Boss, here’s how I do it: It’s a trade dispute, it’s not a trade war. There’s a trade deficit. In the ’80s we had a trade dispute with Japan and we were close allies with them at the same time.”

“Perfect!” Trump said. “You got it. You throw that crap in there, sounds good, then you tell them what I said. And then you’re good.” Apparently trying to tamp down any anxiety, he added, “Tom, you’ll be fine.”

Afterward, Bossert stuck his head in Kelly’s office, just as a courtesy, to say he had just been prepping for TV with the president and had nothing unusual to report. Kelly waved him off. It seemed to Bossert that the chief of staff was greatly diminished, resigned and had largely given up.

Bossert was ready with his talking points, but on ABC, host Martha Raddatz focused on border security. Trump had said he wanted to send 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard troops to the southern border. It was the topic of the day, driven by Trump’s comment. She never asked about China.

Bossert was disappointed because he was “Ready!” to pass along the president’s message of determination and the extraordinary bonding with President Xi of China.





CHAPTER


42




The rest of February, Dowd didn’t hear much. He thought Mueller and Quarles were slow-rolling it. A meeting was finally arranged for 2 p.m. on Monday, March 5, at Mueller’s office.